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Operations Quarterly Update 2017

Quarter 4, 2017

The Operations Standing Committee (OSC) Full Workgroup (WG) meetings were held in Hong Kong in October, attracting 74 participants from 28 Member organisations. WG chairs presented their annual updates on work completed, as well as on current events and global status in their areas of expertise. The IATA Asia-Pacific Regional Director for Safety and Flight Operations joined the meeting to share what IATA is doing globally and the meeting discussed how CANSO and IATA could work collaboratively on key operational issues. Each WG chair provided their vision for the next year in the form of three overall goals which correlate with the CANSO Vision 2020 Work Plan.

Two new members were selected for the OSC Steering Committee (SC): Ruediger Schwenk (DFS) who brings experience as a previous Chair of the Policy Standing Committee; and Bastien Bernard (DSNA) who is Co-Chair of the CANSO Airport-Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) Sub-Group.

Preparations are underway for the CANSO Global ATM Operations Conference 2018 to be held in Madrid on 8-9 March. The theme is “ATM: Short Term Realities and Long-Term Visions” The conference will look at how ANSPs and industry can incorporate new technology advances and at how airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and commercial drones are intending to use those advances. Further details will be released as we get closer.

Quarter 3, 2017

CANSO has continued to work with ICAO on revising ICAOCircular 330, Civil/Military Cooperation in Air Traffic Management, and the first draft is complete. Following review by members of the ICAO Air Traffic Management Operations Panel Working Group (ATM Ops Panel WG) sub-group, it is expected that the English version of the document will be sent out to States for their initial review before the ATM Ops Panel meeting in September. Other language versions will follow.

The CANSO Environmental Workgroup (ENV WG) met in Helsinki, Finland, in May 2017 to discuss a variety of topics including collaborative environmental management (CEM). CEM is a working arrangement that promotes awareness, understanding and dialogue concerning environmental issues within an ANSP, between ANSPs or among aviation stakeholders. The workgroup also agreed to create a questionnaire to collect feedback on what environmental information CANSO ANSP Members need in order to better understand key environmental issues, and determine which areas the group should focus on.

The CANSO Performance Based Navigation Workgroup (PBN WG) has collated results of the PBN Implementation Survey, which highlights the various challenges facing ANSP Members with regard to implementing PBN. These include a lack of regulatory guidance material for new navigational specification/concepts; contingency in the event of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) failure (DME coverage/equipage is limited; ADS-B relies on GNSS); significant social and political impact surrounding noise and environmental concerns; harmonisation of PBN implementation across FIR boundaries; legacy aircraft fleet capabilities; civil/military coordination; lack of human resource (particularly PBN procedure designers); lack of automation tools to support the procedure design process (particularly validation). These are in addition to the high volume of workload to keep up with international and regional PBN implementation plans.

An invitation to the Operations Standing Committee Full Work Group Meeting, 10-13 October in Hong Kong, has been sent to all Operations Standing Committee Workgroup Chairs and CANSO Member Focal Points.

Quarter 2, 2017

Rafael Quezada has joined CANSO as Operations Programme Manager, responsible for managing CANSO's operations programme and the activities of the Operations Standing Committee and its various workgroups. He has extensive air traffic, international and programme experience, having worked in United States Department of Defence as an air traffic controller for 28 years, and most recently with the FAA in the Air Traffic Organization International Office's Africa Regional Desk. I wish to thank FAA for its continued support with this secondment of Rafael.

In April, CANSO participated in the ICAO Asia Pacific A-CDM Task Force meeting and workshop in Kunming, including presentations on CANSO's experience and best practice in A-CDM implementation and on the work and achievements of the CANSO Airport Collaborative Decision-Making Subgroup (ACDM SG).

The CANSO RPAS and Emerging Technologies Workgroup (RPAS/ET WG) will conduct its 2017 face-to-face Workgroup meeting, hosted by Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH (DFS) in Langen, Germany. This will include discussions on the global harmonisation of airspace above flight level 600 for remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS), and other emerging technologies such as commercial space. Additionally, the Workgroup will develop a new work plan to include unmanned aircraft systems traffic management (UTM).

Quarter 1, 2017

The CANSO Air Traffic Flow Management Workgroup (ATFM WG) participated in the ICAO ATFM Seminar in Dubai in December. CANSO is active in the ATFM domain, including involvement in the CANSO Air Traffic Flow Management Data Exchange Network for the Americas (CADENA), ICAO Manual on Collaborative Air Traffic Flow Management DOC9971 Review Panel, and the Asia Pacific ICAO Air Traffic Flow Management Steering Group (APAC ICAO ATFM SG). The Workgroup agreed that a similar Middle East AFTM initiative should be created.

The Operations Standing Committee conducted a collaborative planning training for airlines overflying CADENA Members’ airspace. CADENA Members conduct weekly live operational web conferences to outline real-time and anticipated operational constraints and capacity. This training provided the necessary first step in bringing airlines into the conversation and collaborative decision making during the CADENA operational planning conference calls.

The Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems and Emerging Technologies Workgroup (RPAS/ET WG) has produced a training module to provide ANSPs with a high-level overview of RPAS operations from an ANSP perspective. The PowerPoint presentation is accompanied by a guide for instructors/speakers and includes information on the operation of RPAS, unique terminology, contingency operations, and much more. To view the training and download, visit ATM-Net.